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Monday, January 10, 2011

Politics will always be passionate and partisan, but it’s important that our words be peaceful and foster a climate of nonviolence and respect.

Join me in rejecting appeals to violence in our politics and in urging our elected leaders in government and our thought leaders on television, the radio and online to recognize that political speech containing hate or references to violent acts can have serious, tragic consequences.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims of Saturday’s shooting in Arizona. We mourn the dead and pray for a speedy and full recovery for those who were injured. It is especially heartbreaking that this brutal attack took place while Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was meeting with her constituents. Coming together to discuss, peacefully debate and learn from one another is what our democracy is all about.

This tragedy serves as a terrible reminder to all of our political and civic leaders about the need to end the use of appeals to violence in our political rhetoric. We must find ways to passionately debate—and even disagree with each other—without using words that can give unstable individuals an incitement to engage in violent acts.

Over the past couple of years, violence in political dialogue has gotten out of control. We do not know why the shooter targeted Rep. Giffords, or if he was influenced—directly or indirectly—by the outrageous rhetoric that’s become all too common in our politics.

Here’s what we do know: Threats against members of Congress surged more than 300 percent in 2010, according to Politico.com. As Pima County Sheriff Clarence W. Dupnik, who is investigating this terrible tragedy, notes:

When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous.

Too much vitriolic, hate-filled rhetoric that we hear on radio and television has demonized public servants and candidates as “enemies” and has made them sound less than human. In the short run, it may inspire passions and votes. But in the long run, it’s toxic to the survival of rational discussion in our democracy. And it’s not worthy of our great nation.

Before Saturday’s brutal attack, Rep. Giffords had been targeted. Windows were smashed at her district office last March, just a few hours after the House vote on health care reform. At a town hall event in August 2009, a man attending the event dropped the handgun he had been hiding under his arm.

When things heat up like this, our leaders have a responsibility to come together, denounce the violence on the fringes of our politics and do whatever we can to tone things down and bring back respectful debate. When there’s talk of “target lists” illustrated by gun sights, when there’s talk of “Second Amendment remedies” for political problems, when vitriol has gone as far as it did in the recent election season, it must be condemned as dangerous and unacceptable by leaders and citizens across the political spectrum.

As Rep. Giffords said after the vandalism of her office, we all—Democrats, Republicans and other leaders—have a responsibility to reject appeals to violence wherever they occur in our politics.

She was right. It’s up to all of us.

Today, working people have every right to be angry. Our economy has betrayed them. But all of us must work to keep that anger from turning into hatred, to keep it from turning us against one another and to channel it in a positive direction toward change rather than toward hatred and violence.

I hope that from this tragedy, all of our leaders and media learn that we must find ways to debate passionately with each other without using words that can give unstable individuals an excuse to engage in violent acts. We should be passionate, and even partisan—but it’s important our words be peaceful and we recognize each other’s humanity.

I’ve always believed America works because many people contribute many ideas—and that’s good, even when I flat-out disagree with some of them. But all people must come to the table in good faith. Those of us in the public eye have a special responsibility not to employ violent rhetoric, because it can have dire consequences. As leaders and activists, we have the responsibility to weigh our words carefully and to foster respect and understanding, not violence.

In solidarity,

Richard L. Trumka
President, AFL-CIO

To find out more about the AFL-CIO, please visit our website at www.aflcio.org.

With the Federal Communications Commission and the Justice Department gearing up to give their blessing to Comcast Corp.'s proposed deal to take control of General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal, a slew of last-minute lobbying is being done by both those in favor and those against the marriage of the two media giants.

Last week, Comcast Chief Executive Brian Roberts met personally with Republican FCC Commissioners Robert McDowell and Meredith Attwell as well as Edward Lazarus, the chief of staff for FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. A few weeks ago, Genachowski's office circulated a draft of conditions it wanted put on Comcast and NBC as part of an approval.

Also last week, 97 members of Congress sent the FCC a letter urging the agency to finish its review of the deal and give it a stamp of approval so that "all Americans can reap the benefits of this transaction as quickly as possible."

The Center for Responsive Politics noted that of the 97 House members who signed the letter, 84 had received donations from Comcast. Of course, it is hardly a headline that politicians often send letters on behalf of companies that coincidentally may have made donations to their political action committees.

And it is also not unusual that many of the House members who signed the letter count Comcast or NBC Universal employees as constituents. Comcast has over 100,000 employees in 39 states.

Comcast competitors also continue to make their case to the FCC. Last week, DirecTV lobbied for conditions on how Comcast negotiates programming agreements with rival distributors. On Monday, the Tennis Channel, one of the more vocal opponents to the deal, once again argued that approval of the marriage of Comcast, the nation's biggest cable and broadband provider, with NBC Universal, a programming giant, would be bad for smaller cable channels. Also continuing to sound warnings about the deal is the American Cable Assn., which represents small cable operators. They fear that Comcast will jack up the prices on its cable networks.

Much has been made aboutthe length of time it has taken the FCC and Justice Department to complete their review of the deal. However, it appears that approval will end up taking just over a year, which is much shorter than the review that the mergers of America Online with Time Warner and satellite radio broadcasters Sirius and XM each endured.

When it comes to awards season, box-office phenom True Grit is thought to have been a gainer over the past few weeks, but was that simply a new narrative pushed by a media that's grown weary of The Social Network's dominance? After all, the Directors Guild of America — which gave its DGA Award to Ethan and Joel Coen just three years ago for No Country for Old Men — didn't even include the Coen brothers among the DGA nominees announced this morning. Instead, The Fighter's David O. Russell will be competing against front-runner David Fincher (The Social Network) and his brothers in whiz-bang technique, Christopher Nolan (Inception) and Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan), as well as The King's Speech helmer Tom Hooper.

Slain Arizona 9 Year Old Girl and Iconic American

Greg Segalini held a photo of his niece Christina Green and his sister, Roxanna Green, in Tucson.

Christina Green, who died instantly in Saturday's Arizona shooting, was born on Septemer 11, 2001. She was the 9 year old daughter of a Los Angeles Dodgers scout and granddaughter of a World Series winning Phillidelphia Phillies Manager who went on to become Chicago Cubs General Manager. She was the only girl on her Little League team, and had just been elected to the student council of her elementary school.

“I allowed her to go, thinking it would be an innocent thing,” said the girl’s mother, Roxanna Green, 45.
It did not turn out that way. A gunman shot Representative Gabrielle Giffords, leaving her in critical condition, and his fusillade killed six people, including Christina, a 9-year-old who loved animals and volunteered at a children’s charity.

She was born on Sept. 11, 2001, and she was proud of it, her mother said, because it lent a grace note of hope to that terrible day.

“It was an emotional time for everyone in the family, but Christina’s birth was a happy event and made the day bittersweet,” her mother said in a telephone interview from their Tucson home.

Christina, who was born when the family was living in West Grove, Pa., was one of the 50 “Faces of Hope” representing children from 50 states who were born on Sept. 11. Their images were printed in a book, with some of the proceeds going to a Sept. 11 charity.

Her mother, who grew up as Roxanna Segalini in the Bronx and Scarsdale, N.Y., is a registered nurse and has been a stay-at-home mother to Christina and her 11-year-old brother, Dallas.

Christina’s father, John Green, is a supervising scout for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Her grandfather, Dallas Green, managed the Philadelphia Phillies to the 1980 World Series championship and also managed the Yankees and the Mets.

Christina, an A student, was interested in politics, so her mother accepted the offer by her friend Susan Hileman to take Christina to the congresswoman’s constituent meeting. John Green told The Arizona Star that Christina was such a good speaker that he “could have easily seen her as a politician.”

But Christina also seems to have inherited her family’s baseball genes. She was on a Little League baseball team, its only girl, her mother said.

“She was an athlete, a good dancer, a good gymnast, a good swimmer,” her mother said. “She belonged to Kids Helping Kids charity and tried to help children less fortunate.”

Christina, a slender girl with brownish-blond hair, brown eyes and a gentle smile, also sang in the choir at St. Odilia Roman Catholic Church.

Dorwan Stoddard, 76. Shot in the head while trying to protect his wife.[14][4]

Gabriel "Gabe" Zimmerman, 30. Zimmerman worked on Giffords's staff as a community outreach director.[14][4] He was engaged to be married.[14]

Wounded

The 14 people wounded[2] include Giffords and two of her staff members, Pam Simon and deputy director Ron Barber.[14] Also injured was Bill Badger, 74, a retired army colonel shot while subduing the suspect.[64]

ABC is getting back into the miniseries business, partnering with Salma Hayek to develop a new take on "Wicked."

Erik Jendresen ("Band of Brothers") is writing the script; aim is to turn the book that inspired the long-running Broadway tuner into an eight-hour miniseries for the Alphabet.

The mini is based on the 1995 book "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West" by Gregory Maguire, which recast the witch as a hero fighting for her homeland. The book was turned into the wildly popular musical "Wicked," which hit Broadway in 2003.

About Me

Actor, Casting Director, Director, Broadcaster, Writer, Singer, Artistic
Director, Dramatur, Producer, Professor, Coach, Husband, Grandfather, Marketing
Professional and life long student Art Lynch joined the staff of John Robert
Powers in 1999. Lynch is also an adjunct professor at the Community College of
Southern Nevada, the Morning Edition Weekend Host for Nevada Public Radio and
one of 67 individuals who represent 126,000 actors as a member of the Board of
Directors of the Screen Actors Guild. He is the past president of the Nevada
Branch of the Screen Actors Guild and of the Professional Audio/Visual Communications
Association. A resident of Nevada since 1984, Lynch has an MA in Communications
from UNLV and a BA in Theater, Speech and Mass Communications from the
University of Illinois, Chicago. He is currently pursuing post-graduate studies
in theater, education and the entertainment industry. Art Lynch studied and
practiced the craft of acting in Chicago and California before settling in
Nevada. With his wife Laura, Art owned and operated a successful marketing
company with national clientele. Art was personally responsible for casting and
directing over 1,000 commercials and industrials, as well as assisting on film
and television projects in many ways. His career also includes earning awards
as a wire service, magazine and broadcast journalist. He is most proud,
however, of his daughters. Ann is a PhD in neuroscience and Beth is the proud
mother of his grandchildren, Evan and Elijah.

Short Film Festival

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